1. Addressing Cleanliness
Sample Comments
• “I think that the library is unclean and we should hold students at a higher level of responsibility to clean up after themselves.” - Undergraduate Student
• “The single rooms are dirty and disgusting, the walls are written all-over and it's clearly not clean.” - Undergraduate student
Library Response
- The Dean summarized the large number of complaints about the cleanliness of Pius and met with the head of housekeeping.
- Daily focus for cleaning is restrooms and common areas.
- Study rooms are challenging because of their constant use, especially at peak times like finals. To help with this situation, there are now self-service cleaning stations on each floor in Pius, which can used for cleaning a table before or after use in between formal cleanings.
2. Addressing Subject Expertise
Sample Comments
- “Without our reference librarian to help not only our students but our faculty, we would not be able to produce as much scholarship nor would our students become interested in lifelong learning and the pursuit of knowledge…” – Faculty member
- “I'm concerned that there is no subject specialist in my field. The last reference librarian really helped to support and advance both my research and my teaching.” – Faculty member
Library Response
- Each department will always have a dedicated liaison to support their library needs. With retirements and departures, occasionally the designated librarian may change. Our librarian allocation is also evolving to provide more equitable service across disciplines.
- While it is not possible for librarians to have specific subject expertise for every discipline they cover, they all have advanced knowledge of library services and our collections.
- If you find you are not receiving the expected library support for your research or teaching, please reach out to your subject liaison with your specific issue or concern.
3. Addressing Rare Books
Sample Comments
- “I feel uncertain about making appointments in Rare Books because I do not know what level of service and assistance I can expect …” - Faculty Member
- “We also need a librarian whose training is in rare books who can also assist in the above areas, including in visits to see rare books by undergraduate classes (whose student evaluations often cite such classes as among their most valuable learning experiences)…” - Faculty Member
Library Response
- The four members of the Archives and Rare Books department have subject expertise and are supporting instruction and research using the University’s Rare Books collection.
- They have worked to expand the collection to meet the needs of our faculty, staff, and students and are acquiring new materials that fit our University curricula and academic trends.
- We are in the process of hiring a new Rare Books Librarian, with an anticipated start date in Summer 2024.
- Questions? Contact us at rbk@slu.edu
4. Addressing Collections
Sample Comments
- “I've been frustrated by the lack of access to particular journals.” – Faculty Member
- “Near all the resources for classical humanities are not available online.” – Undergraduate Student
Library Response
- We aim to provide comprehensive access to journals by direct subscriptions and rapid document delivery online through interlibrary loan. Our goal is to provide cost-effective access: access to higher-use titles is by subscription while lower use items are more economically obtained by interlibrary loan via our resources sharing networks.
- We are regularly evaluating our collections including their formats to better meet the needs of our faculty and students. We welcome feedback if you feel you are missing resources critical to your research or teaching.
5. Addressing Systems and Interfaces
Sample Comments
- “Online full-text access seems limited or hard to navigate at times.” – Faculty Member
- “Why is everything compartmentalized? I have to go to a "find at SLU" page instead of having the search results just take me to it. Then ILL is a separate page. It seems extremely decentralized and difficult to find…” – Faculty Member
Library Response
- We recognize that our systems and interfaces are dated and do not always provide the best user experience. We are actively working to make improvement, but this involves large-scale infrastructure projects that will take significant time to complete and need to be rolled out gradually.
- We are currently working on a project to improve the user experience for our online full-text access.
- We have hired a systems librarian, staring March 2024, to help accelerate these systems and infrastructure updates.
- If you experience any access problems, you can contact our e-Resources team (eResourcesHelp@slu.edu).
